Rebuttal: Zack Richardson

As mayor, I will be your voice to make Tallahassee as great as it can be.

After founding the Character Center in Tallahassee, I’ve spent 13 years helping children and adults learn to become self-reliant and personally accountable, helping them learn to overcome adversity, teaching them the importance of honesty and strong character.

A father and a husband, I earned my degree in psychology/criminal justice. Having faced hardships beginning at age 7, including losing both my parents and being put through the foster system, I finally was adopted by a loving family at age 9. They taught me the values of personal responsibility and hard work. I learned to earn every dollar on my own. I have been blessed throughout my childhood experience and my career, to live and work with people of all walks of life.

As your mayor of this fine city, public safety will be my top priority. As a lifelong child advocate, I understand the near and long-term benefits to our community when our law-enforcement agencies are properly funded. I support the use of lapel cameras to keep both police officers and citizens transparent and accountable.

You, the citizens of Tallahassee, deserve transparency and honesty throughout local government. I support adding an independent ethics officer to encourage our representatives to always “do the right thing,” not just what is technically legal. We must be proactive in preventing corruption, precluding unethical city commissioners from tarnishing our city’s image.

Our children need to be considerably better prepared for graduation and the real world. This is the core of what I have done for the last 13 years, implementing programs with real measurable success. Our kids need more vocational opportunities and apprenticeship programs as well.

Tallahassee can do a better job attracting out-of-state entrepreneurs who can be essential to organic growth. Intellectual property within our universities offers hundreds of millions of dollars in untapped opportunities. Additionally, your tax dollars can and should be deployed more broadly to better benefit you.

During this campaign, I’ve listened to your frustrations. I am now even more committed to putting “People Before Politics.” When we put people first, many wrongs will be prevented.

My background as a businessman and my life experiences have uniquely prepared me to make the tough decisions to be the best mayor of Tallahassee, the best champion for the people. I thank you for your vote.

Zack Richardson is a candidate for mayor (http://votezack.info). Contact him at Contact@zack4mayor.com.